


As It Seems

by elegantstupidity



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Gen, Overactive Imagination, Oxford, Post-Canon, St. Sophia's School
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-07-29 10:58:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16262807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegantstupidity/pseuds/elegantstupidity
Summary: Lyra was sure that St. Sophia's had its share of secrets to unveil. If only she could find them.





	As It Seems

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phoxinus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoxinus/gifts).



Though she had been a student of St. Sophia’s School for some time now, had finally settled into a routine—meals in the hall, lessons in between, and studying whenever she could find the time—Lyra expected she could only ever think it second best to Jordan. 

Which, she supposed, was still quite the honor. 

It felt well deserved, though. For all Lyra had seen so much of the world—to say nothing of all the worlds beyond her own—she truly  _liked_ being back in Oxford and studying at St. Sophia's.  She enjoyed her classmates; it was strange keeping company with so many girls her own age, but a good kind of strange, the kind that she suspected was just part and parcel of growing up. Her lessons in alethiometry with Dame Hannah—who had laughingly promised to tell all about the heroic deeds she surely must have to earn her title once Lyra had deciphered the seventh level of the Compass—were fascinating and frustrating in equal measure. Lyra even liked her new room, with its cozy anbaric lights and the window which, while it did not offer a convenient route to the roof, still offered a nice view of the garden. Pan certainly didn't seem to mind it, at least, often curling up on the sill to bask in the afternoon sun when Lyra didn’t require his assistance in finding citations.

Nonetheless, Jordan College was her home. She knew its halls and roofs like the back of Pan’s paw, knew which Scholar would come around the corner just from the rhythm of his footfalls. She knew Jordan’s every nook, cranny, and secret. Well, she liked to think she did, at least. 

How many years would it take her to know St. Sophia’s so thoroughly?

That Lyra and Pan were currently creeping through the kitchen cellars, on the lookout for trap doors or hidden passages and finding frustratingly little worth the effort, no doubt had some effect on her train of thought.

Nonetheless, it was a good question, so she gave it voice. Though, not very loudly. The bustling kitchen staff was only a narrow stair away, and they were largely less accommodating of Lyra’s explorations than the cooks at Jordan. 

Pan returned from the narrow space between a pallet of potatoes and the east wall. Deep, concealing shadows and puzzling irregularities were thin on the ground in these cellars, which could hardly even own the name; evenly spaced window wells admitted too much cheerful sunshine to call to mind the dark, perpetually damp nether regions of Jordan. Still, Lyra had hoped that there might be a grate or even a strongbox to be found back there, just waiting for someone to stumble upon it. Perhaps it would not end there, even! Perhaps she and Pan would find some long-forgotten treasure map or the lost notes of an ancient Scholar or a witch's spell or—

Lyra cut her giddy, spinning thoughts off. Judging by his apologetic, if slightly relieved, expression, Pan had found no such adventure. Like all their other explorations, naturally conducted without the knowledge of her teachers or fellow pupils, it appeared that they hadn't found anything of note. Only cobwebs and ordinary dust.

Shaking the dirt loose from his coat, Pan replied, “Not very long if there really isn’t anything interesting to find.”

“There has to be,” Lyra insisted, though she feared her daemon was right.

They had already scoured the rooftops, but evidently, St. Sophia’s had been constructed by a far more ordered mind than the architects of Jordan. There wasn’t a single abandoned belfry or dormer to investigate along the neatly sloping slate shingles of the college. Once, she thought they'd found the den of a lone, vicious cliff-ghast who feasted on the unsuspecting pigeons and mice of Oxford, but the owl who'd let out a disgruntled hoot at being woken from his afternoon nap quickly put that hope to rest. She and Pan had yet to perform a thorough search of the college's interior—who knew how many secret passages or spy holes were concealed among the lovely plasterwork and wooden panelling?—and she remained optimistic, but Lyra was nevertheless beginning to think St. Sophia’s was exactly as it seemed: the premier school and college for the young ladies of Brytain.  

That would be more than a disappointment. Lyra had no small appreciation for the education that St. Sophia's would afford her, but that couldn't be all her new home had to offer. It was hard to trust a place with no secrets to give up, nothing to hide in its shadows. Lyra, after all, knew well that it was the things she couldn’t see that were often the most terrifying.

“What if there’s not?” Pan challenged, climbing a depressingly steady shelf to see if anything interesting had rolled to the back. All he found was a shriveled onion and more dust. “That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”

She sighed and didn’t answer. Pan crept back to the edge of the shelf to look down at his Lyra. She had grown again, her knobby wrists sticking out from beneath the cuffs of her shirt, which she was leaving smudged and stained from her constant tugging.

Lyra lifted her gaze from her shoes and met Pan’s dark eyes. 

“It wouldn’t be very exciting,” she finally said.

She and Pan had had more adventure and excitement than most people ever dreamed of, but that didn’t mean she wanted it all to be over. She didn't want a quiet, retiring life where everything interesting was right there on the surface for anyone to see.

For all Pan might insist otherwise, Lyra didn’t think that he did, either. 

Pantalaimon circled warily on his perch. He did not have to agree with her; Lyra could keep exploring the school on her own. Though she’d have to take care to go unnoticed without Pan at her side, their ability to separate after her journey through Death had not faded. 

Still, he did not like the idea of Lyra out, even in their beloved Oxford, without him. 

So, he leapt from his shelf and landed neatly on Lyra’s shoulder. She turned her cheek to him, and a feeling of rightness settled over them both. 

“I bet,” Pan murmured, right in her ear, "if we wait until midnight, we could probably catch one of the night-ghasts that have been terrorizing the hall.”

Lyra lit up. She’d been startled awake at least six times in the last month to the screams of her fellow students. Once, she found she’d fallen asleep at her desk with the pages of one of her texts as a pillow, and while she was thankful for the chance to spend the rest of the night in bed, she did not relish the idea of becoming the next victim of a night-ghast swarm. 

There were many dark and terrible things in the universes, and Lyra had seen far too many of them. Her mind and memories would be a playground to the pitiless night-ghasts.

“Better, I bet we could find their lair!” she exclaimed, mind already racing with the possibilities. Willingly walking into a swarm was just asking for trouble. Shivers crawled down Lyra’s spine at the mere thought.

But it would certainly be an adventure. 

Pan nodded his agreement, his tail twitching with excitement. “And then we—“

Before they could plot any further, a shrill, furious cry cut through the air, making both Lyra and Pan jump out of their skins. They whirled around and came face to face with Mr. Appleby, the red-faced cook who ruled St. Sophia’s kitchens with an iron fist. The same red-faced cook who had preemptively forbade Lyra and Pan from stepping foot in his kitchen, having heard more than one unflattering tale of her exploits from the staff at Jordan.

“What are you doing down here?” he demanded, loud enough for the words to bounce and distort off the low, stone ceiling. Lyra jumped again at the crash of sound, retreating further into the cellar, which suddenly seemed far less welcoming than it had a moment ago. Mr. Appleby advanced, his beetle daemon clacking its pincers in annoyance. “I thought I told you to stay out from underfoot!”

Lyra didn’t bother to lie. Not because she couldn't—Iorek hadn't named her Silvertongue without reason—but because she recognized that her talents would be wasted. Mr. Appleby would sooner throw her to a clan of cliff-ghasts than believe one word out of her mouth. So, rather than search for the clever words that might get her out of this situation, Lyra turned to her feet. 

She darted around a bushel of apples, Pan dropping to the floor as she went. It wasn’t until she heard a clatter and a curse that she realized why. Pan had knocked over a stack of empty crates to help them escape. 

“Go! Go!” he urged, already streaking towards freedom. 

Hard on Pan’s heels, laughter warring for space in her throat with her thundering heart, Lyra bounded up the cellar stairs, past the baffled kitchen workers, and back out into the Oxford sun.


End file.
